Web Exclusive New Rule – Kung Fu Pander
The Daddy Party by Bill Maher
We hear this every four years, but Michael Bloomberg is “seriously considering” running for president as an Independent. People close to him say if Trump or Cruz is the Republican nominee and Sanders is the Democrat, he’ll probably do it. Apparently he thinks Clinton is appealing enough to the middle that, if it’s her, he probably won’t run.
This would probably result in a Republican president, because the rational vote would split, and you could win with the 35 to 40 percent of the country that has anger management issues. It’s a shame, because you know who would make a great Republican nominee? Michael Bloomberg.
As mayor, he was a fiscal conservative, a champion of charter schools, a big law and order guy. 12 years ago, he endorsed George W. Bush for president. He’s a jobs creator worth nine times what Donald Trump is (according to Forbes), so he could be the traditional big business, Wall Street candidate. He supported the Iraq War, and is hawkish on Israel. Old school conservatives are saying, “You had me at stop and frisk.”
Sure, he banned smoking, trans fat and large sodas, but Republicans like strongmen who rule with an iron fist. He’s liberal on gay rights, but so are most people these days. Guns and abortion are the real deal breakers, but they didn’t use to be. You could run as a Republican without being Davey Crockett or Jerry Falwell.
Wouldn’t it be nice to still have a real choice between a Mommy Party and a Daddy Party? That’s what we could have with Bloomberg from Wall Street vs. Sanders from Denmark. But Republicans are no longer the Daddy Party. They’re the drunken, deadbeat uncle party, which forces Democrats to be the Mommy and the Daddy who just don’t let him near the kids.
The monologue is filled with jokes about the debate. Trump overshadows Republican debate even as he sits it out. Even in boycotting a debate with his Republican rivals, front-runner Donald Trump managed to upstage the event on Thursday with a typical dramatic flourish.
Instead of attending a seventh debate, the former reality TV star held a competing event across town that he said raised $6 million for U.S. military veterans. In doing so, he cast a shadow over his rivals, who frequently tossed barbs his way.
Trump's gamble that he could leave the battlefield to his rivals for one night appeared to pay off, with just days to go before Iowa holds the first nominating contest of the 2016 election season. No one appeared to emerge as a central challenger to him during the two-hour face-off in Des Moines.
Trump's refusal to participate in the debate out of anger that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was a moderator prompted a flurry of last-minute phone calls with Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes that failed to resolve their dispute.
A Fox News (FOXA.O) statement said Trump requested that Fox contribute $5 million to his charities in exchange for his attendance, which the network turned down.
The debate was the type of event Republicans would routinely have without the flamboyant Trump on stage, and it lacked the electricity that he brings to the party's search for a nominee for the Nov. 8 election.
Without Trump on stage, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie found themselves with more room to make their case to voters seeking a more mainstream candidate.
Both men have an eye on the Feb. 9 first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire, which comes on the heels of the Iowa caucuses on Monday and where an establishment Republican like them might have a better chance of standing out.
Senator Ted Cruz from Texas and Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, the two top challengers to Trump in Iowa, engaged in squabbles over immigration and national security and did not appear to threaten Trump's lead. He holds the edge over Cruz in polls of Iowa Republicans.
Trump's rivals mocked his decision to sit out the debate and found ways to criticize him.
"I’m a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly, and Ben, you're a terrible surgeon," Cruz told his rivals, including Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, as the debate opened. His next sentence began: "Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way."
Bush, who has been a frequent target of Trump's attacks, turned a question about religious tolerance into an attack on Trump's proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
"Donald Trump, for example — I mentioned his name again if anybody was missing him — Mr. Trump believed in reaction to people’s fears that we should ban all Muslims. Well, that creates an environment that’s toxic in our own country," Bush said.
Cruz, after a series of questions, said: "If you ask me one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage."
In a swipe at both Trump and Cruz, Rubio chimed in: "Don't worry, I'm not going to leave the stage no matter what you ask me."
With his veterans' event drawing live TV news coverage on Fox News competitors CNN and MSNBC, Trump absorbed plenty of media attention.
He clung to his insistence that Fox News had treated him badly. He has complained that Kelly insulted him at a debate in August and that a statement from the network earlier this week had belittled him.
Two other Republican candidates, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, joined Trump on stage after participating in a debate of low-polling candidates.
Not so former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore.
"I’m not about to go across town tonight to carry the coat for some billionaire," he said at the "undercard" debate.
There was some mystery as to which veterans' groups would receive the money raised at the event, which included $1 million from Trump himself. His campaign did not say which group was getting the funds.
Trump, with just one day's notice on a weeknight, was able to fill to capacity a hall at Drake University that holds 700.
"I didn’t want to be here, to be honest, I wanted to be about five minutes away" at the debate, Trump told the crowd. "When you’re treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights - whether we like it or not."
Trump dominated social media during the debate, leading the entire Republican pack in Twitter mentions throughout the first half of the debate, according to data from social media analytics firm Zoomph.
Trump was by far the most-searched-for candidate on Google during the first half of the debate, at one point outpacing the second-most-searched-for candidate, Rubio, by nearly four-to-one, according to Google Trends data.
Trump's support in opinion polls, much of it from blue-collar men, has not wavered for months despite him insulting Mexican immigrants and Muslims and clashing with Republican establishment figures like Senator John McCain.
We now know what a Republican presidential debate looks like without Donald Trump -- pretty tame.
The final GOP debate before the Iowa caucuses went on without the party's front-runner Thursday night, and in his absence, the personal attacks, bluster and theatrics that had dominated previous debates were largely gone.
As Trump hosted a rival event for veterans less than three miles away, other leading Republicans clashed along familiar battle lines that included immigration and surveillance, as each tried to make their most forceful case to voters just days away from the Iowa contest. But without Trump on stage, there were few breakout moments that are likely to change the course of the race.
The evening kicked off with a tribute to what Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly called the "elephant not in the room."
"Let me say, I'm a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly and Ben, you're a terrible surgeon," said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's closest rival in the Hawkeye State. "Now that we've gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way..."
Marco Rubio said the 2016 presidential campaign is "not about Donald Trump."
"He's an entertaining guy, he's the greatest show on earth," the Florida senator said, adding that the party should focus on preventing Democrat Hillary Clinton from winning the White House.
Jeb Bush, who has grown increasingly combative with Trump over the months, joked that he wished the real estate mogul was there. He also appeared to take a swipe at his rivals on stage for not taking on Trump as aggressively as he has.
"I kind of miss Donald Trump. He was a little teddy bear to me," Bush said. "Everybody else was in the witness protection program when I went after him."
But beyond these initial remarks, Trump was missing from the conversation for most of the two-hour debate. Instead, seven of his competitors went head-to-head on policy, as they jockeyed to prove their conservatism and preparedness to run the country.
"The exchanges were much more civil. You didn't have any gratuitous insults," Cruz said on Fox News after the conclusion of the debate.
Policy clash
Not for the first time, immigration drew some of the sharpest clashes.
Rubio, who co-sponsored the so-called "Gang of Eight" bipartisan immigration reform bill, was on the defensive on one of his most vulnerable issues.
"I do not support blanket amnesty," he said.
Bush turned to his fellow Floridian and said he was "confused" to hear Rubio say this, as he accused the senator of changing his position for political expediency.
"He cut and run because it wasn't popular among conservatives, I guess," Bush said.
Cruz also defended his conservative credentials on immigration. He said an amendment he proposed during the Senate's immigration debate made clear that "anyone here illegally is permanently ineligible for citizenship."
"My friend Sen. Rubio stood with Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer" and supported amnesty, Cruz said.
Paul jumped in by calling Cruz's statements on immigration "insulting" and said Cruz had no place accusing his rivals of being for amnesty. Rubio was quick to join in.
"This is the lie that Ted's campaign is built on," Rubio said. "He's the most conservative guy and everyone else is a 'RINO.'"
Christie — who is counting on a solid performance in New Hampshire -- seized on the moment to deliver a powerful rebuke of his rivals. He called Cruz and Rubio products of Washington skilled at making procedural arguments that are inconsequential to voters, in a moment clearly aimed at setting himself apart as a Washington outsider.
"This is why you need to send someone from outside of Washington to Washington," the New Jersey governor said. "I feel like I need a Washington-to-English converter."
The candidates also butted heads on surveillance and national security. Cruz, in particular, was hit for his vote on NSA reform.
Christie, who has been critical of Cruz's vote to end the NSA's bulk data collection program, said the senator's vote "made the country less safe."
Rand Paul also joined in, accusing Cruz of flip-flopping. "Ted said he was for NSA reform, but then he told Marco Rubio, no, no, no, I voted for the bill because I'm for the government collecting 100 percent of your cell phone records," the Kentucky senator said. "I don't think Ted can have it both ways."
Unexpected curveball
Trump threw an unexpected curveball into the 2016 campaign this week when he declared that he would boycott the debate amid an escalating feud with Fox News.
The decision came amid a feud with Fox News after Trump questioned whether moderator Megyn Kelly would treat him fairly at the debate.
In an interview with CNN's Brianna Keilar on Thursday, Trump said Fox News "apologized" to him for a mocking statement the television network issued two days before the debate. While the network "could not have been nicer" as it tried to woo him back into attending the debate, Trump said he would stick to his plan of holding the event for veterans.
"I was treated very unfairly by Fox. Since then they've been excellent, they've been very nice, but it's too late," he said in the interview aboard his private plane.
A Fox News spokesperson said Roger Ailes, the network's chief executive, had "three brief conversations" with Trump on Thursday.
"In the course of those conversations, we acknowledged his concerns about a satirical observation we made in order to quell the attacks on Megyn Kelly, and prevent her from being smeared any further," the spokesperson said.
At his competing event, Trump said he raised more than $6 million for veterans in a single day. He dismissed any notion that his absences from the debate would hurt him with voters.
"When you're treated badly you have to stick up for your rights," Trump said. "And that's what our country has to do."
Undercard
Trump's boycott was also a topic of conversation at an earlier undercard debate featuring four lower-polling candidates -- Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Jim Gilmore. Santorum quickly expressed deep frustration with the drama surrounding Trump.
"The entire lead-up to this debate was about whether Donald Trump was going to show up to the next debate," Santorum said. "The people of Iowa ... care a lot about the issues. They care about who's going to be the leader of the free world."
Santorum and Huckabee, two previous winners of the Iowa caucuses, attended Trump's veterans event after the debate.
Gilmore, who has not qualified for most undercard debates, mocked Trump's rival event, as he called himself "the only veteran" running for president this cycle.
"I'm not going to any Donald Trump event over across town on some sort of faux veteran sort of issue," Gilmore said.
He appeared to relish his time in the spotlight, taking issue on several occasions with how many questions he was being asked by the moderators.
"Did you miss me? Did you skip me?" Gilmore blurted out when a question went to Huckabee. CNN's Maeve Reston, Jeremy Diamond and Brian Stelter contributed to this report.
Donald Trump says he raised nearly $6 million for veterans with debate boycott. If Donald Trump had any second thoughts about skipping the GOP debate, he certainly didn’t show it as he took the stage before a raucous crowd at Drake University on Thursday night to say that he had raised nearly $6 million for veterans in one day.
For several days now, the pundits have pontificated about the damage that Trump’s decision could inflict on his campaign. But, comparing his crowd and the number of cameras to the Academy Awards, Trump waved off the notion that Iowans would see him as a sore loser.
“We love our vets,” Trump said.
“When you’re treated badly you have to stick up for your rights,” Trump added, alluding to his relationship with Fox. “And that’s what our country has to do.”
“We have to stick up for our country when we’re being mistreated.”
He added that Fox had been “extremely nice,” but it was too late. In an interview with CNN just before the rally, Trump said Fox News “apologized” to him for a mocking statement the television network issued.
Also appearing with Trump were two men who didn’t make the prime-time debate, and the two most recent winners of the Iowa Caucuses: Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.
‘Donald Trump isn’t scared of anything’
Trump supporters who waited hours in the cold to see him roundly disputed the notion that he would see any attrition in his support in Iowa, where he has led in recent polls.
In interviews, many voters here said the controversy was yet another example of Trump bucking the establishment — a trait that has endeared them to him from the beginning — and that they were proud of him standing up to Fox News.
Ernie Ratcliffe, an army veteran who served two tours in Vietnam, drove in from Kansas City for the rally, scoffed when asked for his thoughts on Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s contention that Trump skipped the debate because he was afraid of taunts or difficult questions from the Fox moderators or rival candidates.
“Donald Trump isn’t scared of anything. He’s not scared of absolutely anything,” said Ratcliffe, who has signed up with his wife to call New Hampshire voters on Trump’s behalf next week. “Donald J. Trump said he was going to do this and he’s done it. He’s a man of his word.”
Ratcliffe said he was convinced that Trump was the only candidate who could clean up the Department of Veterans Affairs and that it would be “one of the first things he does when he gets into office.”
“He’s going to get it squared away,” Ratlcliffe said. “It’s not going to take him very long to do it. He’s going to put the right people in. He knows how to manage things. He’s a very successful businessman. He’s going to get it done very quickly and very, very well.”
Randal Thom, a former Marine who was among the first admitted to Trump’s event, said he loved it that Trump refused to back down.
“When it came out yesterday that he was actually doing this (rally) in less than 24 hours, it was amazing,” Thom said. “It just shows he has the ability to rally and get things done.”
Thom, who raises Alaskan Malamute and Pomalute puppies in Minnesota, and plans to spend Monday in Iowa volunteering for Trump, dismissed Cruz as “a Canadian born citizen” and described the Texas senator, as well as the other GOP contenders as “weak.”
“Trump is a 100% strongman. He’s bullet proof,” Thom said. “People say, ‘Oh look at his background. Look at the number of wives he’s had.’ You know what? I don’t care about that. What I care about is his future.”
The details of exactly how Trump plans to parcel out money to veterans groups as a result of the event remained unclear on Monday night. But said he gave $1 million to veterans.
Inside the auditorium where Trump spoke, the campaign reserved special seating for veterans, many of them disabled, and Trump recognized them as he took the stage.
Bill also weighed in on Joseph Fiennes being cast as Michael Jackson. I know that Wendy Williams described it by saying "that's like getting Angela Bassett to play Sophia Loren," the talk show host said. "You just don't do that! With the roles so few and far between for a lot of black actors, I feel like even if they couldn't get a name they could've got somebody that we don't know." Bill said not even when its Michael Jackson.
The initial interview is with Dr. Sam Chachoua. He is a medical expert, currently practicing in Mexico. He is the inventor of Induced Remission Therapy, an alternative treatment for HIV/AIDS and cancer.
This would probably result in a Republican president, because the rational vote would split, and you could win with the 35 to 40 percent of the country that has anger management issues. It’s a shame, because you know who would make a great Republican nominee? Michael Bloomberg.
As mayor, he was a fiscal conservative, a champion of charter schools, a big law and order guy. 12 years ago, he endorsed George W. Bush for president. He’s a jobs creator worth nine times what Donald Trump is (according to Forbes), so he could be the traditional big business, Wall Street candidate. He supported the Iraq War, and is hawkish on Israel. Old school conservatives are saying, “You had me at stop and frisk.”
Sure, he banned smoking, trans fat and large sodas, but Republicans like strongmen who rule with an iron fist. He’s liberal on gay rights, but so are most people these days. Guns and abortion are the real deal breakers, but they didn’t use to be. You could run as a Republican without being Davey Crockett or Jerry Falwell.
Wouldn’t it be nice to still have a real choice between a Mommy Party and a Daddy Party? That’s what we could have with Bloomberg from Wall Street vs. Sanders from Denmark. But Republicans are no longer the Daddy Party. They’re the drunken, deadbeat uncle party, which forces Democrats to be the Mommy and the Daddy who just don’t let him near the kids.
The monologue is filled with jokes about the debate. Trump overshadows Republican debate even as he sits it out. Even in boycotting a debate with his Republican rivals, front-runner Donald Trump managed to upstage the event on Thursday with a typical dramatic flourish.
Instead of attending a seventh debate, the former reality TV star held a competing event across town that he said raised $6 million for U.S. military veterans. In doing so, he cast a shadow over his rivals, who frequently tossed barbs his way.
Trump's gamble that he could leave the battlefield to his rivals for one night appeared to pay off, with just days to go before Iowa holds the first nominating contest of the 2016 election season. No one appeared to emerge as a central challenger to him during the two-hour face-off in Des Moines.
Trump's refusal to participate in the debate out of anger that Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was a moderator prompted a flurry of last-minute phone calls with Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes that failed to resolve their dispute.
A Fox News (FOXA.O) statement said Trump requested that Fox contribute $5 million to his charities in exchange for his attendance, which the network turned down.
The debate was the type of event Republicans would routinely have without the flamboyant Trump on stage, and it lacked the electricity that he brings to the party's search for a nominee for the Nov. 8 election.
Without Trump on stage, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie found themselves with more room to make their case to voters seeking a more mainstream candidate.
Both men have an eye on the Feb. 9 first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire, which comes on the heels of the Iowa caucuses on Monday and where an establishment Republican like them might have a better chance of standing out.
Senator Ted Cruz from Texas and Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, the two top challengers to Trump in Iowa, engaged in squabbles over immigration and national security and did not appear to threaten Trump's lead. He holds the edge over Cruz in polls of Iowa Republicans.
Trump's rivals mocked his decision to sit out the debate and found ways to criticize him.
"I’m a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly, and Ben, you're a terrible surgeon," Cruz told his rivals, including Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, as the debate opened. His next sentence began: "Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way."
Bush, who has been a frequent target of Trump's attacks, turned a question about religious tolerance into an attack on Trump's proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
"Donald Trump, for example — I mentioned his name again if anybody was missing him — Mr. Trump believed in reaction to people’s fears that we should ban all Muslims. Well, that creates an environment that’s toxic in our own country," Bush said.
Cruz, after a series of questions, said: "If you ask me one more mean question, I may have to leave the stage."
In a swipe at both Trump and Cruz, Rubio chimed in: "Don't worry, I'm not going to leave the stage no matter what you ask me."
With his veterans' event drawing live TV news coverage on Fox News competitors CNN and MSNBC, Trump absorbed plenty of media attention.
He clung to his insistence that Fox News had treated him badly. He has complained that Kelly insulted him at a debate in August and that a statement from the network earlier this week had belittled him.
Two other Republican candidates, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, joined Trump on stage after participating in a debate of low-polling candidates.
Not so former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore.
"I’m not about to go across town tonight to carry the coat for some billionaire," he said at the "undercard" debate.
There was some mystery as to which veterans' groups would receive the money raised at the event, which included $1 million from Trump himself. His campaign did not say which group was getting the funds.
Trump, with just one day's notice on a weeknight, was able to fill to capacity a hall at Drake University that holds 700.
"I didn’t want to be here, to be honest, I wanted to be about five minutes away" at the debate, Trump told the crowd. "When you’re treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights - whether we like it or not."
Trump dominated social media during the debate, leading the entire Republican pack in Twitter mentions throughout the first half of the debate, according to data from social media analytics firm Zoomph.
Trump was by far the most-searched-for candidate on Google during the first half of the debate, at one point outpacing the second-most-searched-for candidate, Rubio, by nearly four-to-one, according to Google Trends data.
Trump's support in opinion polls, much of it from blue-collar men, has not wavered for months despite him insulting Mexican immigrants and Muslims and clashing with Republican establishment figures like Senator John McCain.
We now know what a Republican presidential debate looks like without Donald Trump -- pretty tame.
The final GOP debate before the Iowa caucuses went on without the party's front-runner Thursday night, and in his absence, the personal attacks, bluster and theatrics that had dominated previous debates were largely gone.
As Trump hosted a rival event for veterans less than three miles away, other leading Republicans clashed along familiar battle lines that included immigration and surveillance, as each tried to make their most forceful case to voters just days away from the Iowa contest. But without Trump on stage, there were few breakout moments that are likely to change the course of the race.
The evening kicked off with a tribute to what Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly called the "elephant not in the room."
"Let me say, I'm a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly and Ben, you're a terrible surgeon," said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump's closest rival in the Hawkeye State. "Now that we've gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way..."
Marco Rubio said the 2016 presidential campaign is "not about Donald Trump."
"He's an entertaining guy, he's the greatest show on earth," the Florida senator said, adding that the party should focus on preventing Democrat Hillary Clinton from winning the White House.
Jeb Bush, who has grown increasingly combative with Trump over the months, joked that he wished the real estate mogul was there. He also appeared to take a swipe at his rivals on stage for not taking on Trump as aggressively as he has.
"I kind of miss Donald Trump. He was a little teddy bear to me," Bush said. "Everybody else was in the witness protection program when I went after him."
But beyond these initial remarks, Trump was missing from the conversation for most of the two-hour debate. Instead, seven of his competitors went head-to-head on policy, as they jockeyed to prove their conservatism and preparedness to run the country.
"The exchanges were much more civil. You didn't have any gratuitous insults," Cruz said on Fox News after the conclusion of the debate.
Policy clash
Not for the first time, immigration drew some of the sharpest clashes.
Rubio, who co-sponsored the so-called "Gang of Eight" bipartisan immigration reform bill, was on the defensive on one of his most vulnerable issues.
"I do not support blanket amnesty," he said.
Bush turned to his fellow Floridian and said he was "confused" to hear Rubio say this, as he accused the senator of changing his position for political expediency.
"He cut and run because it wasn't popular among conservatives, I guess," Bush said.
Cruz also defended his conservative credentials on immigration. He said an amendment he proposed during the Senate's immigration debate made clear that "anyone here illegally is permanently ineligible for citizenship."
"My friend Sen. Rubio stood with Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer" and supported amnesty, Cruz said.
Paul jumped in by calling Cruz's statements on immigration "insulting" and said Cruz had no place accusing his rivals of being for amnesty. Rubio was quick to join in.
"This is the lie that Ted's campaign is built on," Rubio said. "He's the most conservative guy and everyone else is a 'RINO.'"
Christie — who is counting on a solid performance in New Hampshire -- seized on the moment to deliver a powerful rebuke of his rivals. He called Cruz and Rubio products of Washington skilled at making procedural arguments that are inconsequential to voters, in a moment clearly aimed at setting himself apart as a Washington outsider.
"This is why you need to send someone from outside of Washington to Washington," the New Jersey governor said. "I feel like I need a Washington-to-English converter."
The candidates also butted heads on surveillance and national security. Cruz, in particular, was hit for his vote on NSA reform.
Christie, who has been critical of Cruz's vote to end the NSA's bulk data collection program, said the senator's vote "made the country less safe."
Rand Paul also joined in, accusing Cruz of flip-flopping. "Ted said he was for NSA reform, but then he told Marco Rubio, no, no, no, I voted for the bill because I'm for the government collecting 100 percent of your cell phone records," the Kentucky senator said. "I don't think Ted can have it both ways."
Unexpected curveball
Trump threw an unexpected curveball into the 2016 campaign this week when he declared that he would boycott the debate amid an escalating feud with Fox News.
The decision came amid a feud with Fox News after Trump questioned whether moderator Megyn Kelly would treat him fairly at the debate.
In an interview with CNN's Brianna Keilar on Thursday, Trump said Fox News "apologized" to him for a mocking statement the television network issued two days before the debate. While the network "could not have been nicer" as it tried to woo him back into attending the debate, Trump said he would stick to his plan of holding the event for veterans.
"I was treated very unfairly by Fox. Since then they've been excellent, they've been very nice, but it's too late," he said in the interview aboard his private plane.
A Fox News spokesperson said Roger Ailes, the network's chief executive, had "three brief conversations" with Trump on Thursday.
"In the course of those conversations, we acknowledged his concerns about a satirical observation we made in order to quell the attacks on Megyn Kelly, and prevent her from being smeared any further," the spokesperson said.
At his competing event, Trump said he raised more than $6 million for veterans in a single day. He dismissed any notion that his absences from the debate would hurt him with voters.
"When you're treated badly you have to stick up for your rights," Trump said. "And that's what our country has to do."
Undercard
Trump's boycott was also a topic of conversation at an earlier undercard debate featuring four lower-polling candidates -- Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Jim Gilmore. Santorum quickly expressed deep frustration with the drama surrounding Trump.
"The entire lead-up to this debate was about whether Donald Trump was going to show up to the next debate," Santorum said. "The people of Iowa ... care a lot about the issues. They care about who's going to be the leader of the free world."
Santorum and Huckabee, two previous winners of the Iowa caucuses, attended Trump's veterans event after the debate.
Gilmore, who has not qualified for most undercard debates, mocked Trump's rival event, as he called himself "the only veteran" running for president this cycle.
"I'm not going to any Donald Trump event over across town on some sort of faux veteran sort of issue," Gilmore said.
He appeared to relish his time in the spotlight, taking issue on several occasions with how many questions he was being asked by the moderators.
"Did you miss me? Did you skip me?" Gilmore blurted out when a question went to Huckabee. CNN's Maeve Reston, Jeremy Diamond and Brian Stelter contributed to this report.
Donald Trump says he raised nearly $6 million for veterans with debate boycott. If Donald Trump had any second thoughts about skipping the GOP debate, he certainly didn’t show it as he took the stage before a raucous crowd at Drake University on Thursday night to say that he had raised nearly $6 million for veterans in one day.
For several days now, the pundits have pontificated about the damage that Trump’s decision could inflict on his campaign. But, comparing his crowd and the number of cameras to the Academy Awards, Trump waved off the notion that Iowans would see him as a sore loser.
“We love our vets,” Trump said.
“When you’re treated badly you have to stick up for your rights,” Trump added, alluding to his relationship with Fox. “And that’s what our country has to do.”
“We have to stick up for our country when we’re being mistreated.”
He added that Fox had been “extremely nice,” but it was too late. In an interview with CNN just before the rally, Trump said Fox News “apologized” to him for a mocking statement the television network issued.
Also appearing with Trump were two men who didn’t make the prime-time debate, and the two most recent winners of the Iowa Caucuses: Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.
‘Donald Trump isn’t scared of anything’
Trump supporters who waited hours in the cold to see him roundly disputed the notion that he would see any attrition in his support in Iowa, where he has led in recent polls.
In interviews, many voters here said the controversy was yet another example of Trump bucking the establishment — a trait that has endeared them to him from the beginning — and that they were proud of him standing up to Fox News.
Ernie Ratcliffe, an army veteran who served two tours in Vietnam, drove in from Kansas City for the rally, scoffed when asked for his thoughts on Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s contention that Trump skipped the debate because he was afraid of taunts or difficult questions from the Fox moderators or rival candidates.
“Donald Trump isn’t scared of anything. He’s not scared of absolutely anything,” said Ratcliffe, who has signed up with his wife to call New Hampshire voters on Trump’s behalf next week. “Donald J. Trump said he was going to do this and he’s done it. He’s a man of his word.”
Ratcliffe said he was convinced that Trump was the only candidate who could clean up the Department of Veterans Affairs and that it would be “one of the first things he does when he gets into office.”
“He’s going to get it squared away,” Ratlcliffe said. “It’s not going to take him very long to do it. He’s going to put the right people in. He knows how to manage things. He’s a very successful businessman. He’s going to get it done very quickly and very, very well.”
Randal Thom, a former Marine who was among the first admitted to Trump’s event, said he loved it that Trump refused to back down.
“When it came out yesterday that he was actually doing this (rally) in less than 24 hours, it was amazing,” Thom said. “It just shows he has the ability to rally and get things done.”
Thom, who raises Alaskan Malamute and Pomalute puppies in Minnesota, and plans to spend Monday in Iowa volunteering for Trump, dismissed Cruz as “a Canadian born citizen” and described the Texas senator, as well as the other GOP contenders as “weak.”
“Trump is a 100% strongman. He’s bullet proof,” Thom said. “People say, ‘Oh look at his background. Look at the number of wives he’s had.’ You know what? I don’t care about that. What I care about is his future.”
The details of exactly how Trump plans to parcel out money to veterans groups as a result of the event remained unclear on Monday night. But said he gave $1 million to veterans.
Inside the auditorium where Trump spoke, the campaign reserved special seating for veterans, many of them disabled, and Trump recognized them as he took the stage.
Bill also weighed in on Joseph Fiennes being cast as Michael Jackson. I know that Wendy Williams described it by saying "that's like getting Angela Bassett to play Sophia Loren," the talk show host said. "You just don't do that! With the roles so few and far between for a lot of black actors, I feel like even if they couldn't get a name they could've got somebody that we don't know." Bill said not even when its Michael Jackson.
The initial interview is with Dr. Sam Chachoua. He is a medical expert, currently practicing in Mexico. He is the inventor of Induced Remission Therapy, an alternative treatment for HIV/AIDS and cancer.
Chachoua claims his cure comes from the CAEV virus, which he says is present in the milk of arthritic goats. “This virus destroys HIV and protects people who drink it for life,” he claimed to Bill Maher. While he didn’t get into the exact science, what he’s offering is a cure not a therapy, which means that after Chachoua’s services, Sheen should be HIV free. Sheen is not HIV negative, which means that Bill Maher should not be taking this quack seriously, much less giving him ten minutes of airtime to spout his nonsense, which is full of evident contradictions. Chachoua, for example, claimed to Dr. Oz that Sheen was “the first adult in history to go HIV negative.”
That is untrue, but also it contradicts what he told Bill, which is that he eradicated HIV (as well as chikungunya) in Comoros in 2006. “I’ve cured countries!” Chachoua claimed, sounding like a televangelist.
“[The Dr. Oz episode] just kind of [leaves] it hanging there…If he says, as he did, that it was undetectable and it stayed then why did he go back on the traditional cocktail?” said Maher, and never pressed when this went unexplained. Nor did he show any skepticism when Chachoua claimed that when Sheen was on “the incredibly powerful medical cocktails, he still showed virus.” In fact, to this, Maher said, “Right,” which it isn’t according to Sheen’s account of being undetectable on antiretroviral therapy and, oh you know, science. “As soon as he started my treatment he became undetectable,” claimed Chachoua.
Maher played a clip of Sheen complaining to Dr. Oz about migraines and “poo poo pants” as side effects of his antiretroviral therapy. “Poo poo pants, I don’t think, is a normal life,” said Maher. “It’s a horrible way to live, all these side effects disappeared the minute he started my therapy and the minute he started my therapy, his liver went to normal levels,” claimed Chachoua, uncontested. “Even the charts they held up on our show, all the great tests they showed, they were during my treatment, not theirs.”
Maher praised Chachoua for injecting himself with Sheen’s blood. (Read that surreal sentence again.) Said Maher: “You took Charlie’s blood when he was HIV positive and injected it into yourself, and Dr. Oz says, ‘That is very inappropriate.’ What I thought was, ‘That is confident.’”
Chachoua claims that in the ‘90s, he was courted by UCLA and Cedars-Sinai, who then stole his AIDS cure and buried it. HIV activist Peter Staley (How To Survive a Plague) did some digging to expose the truth behind Chachoua’s $10 million lawsuit regarding his “cure,” which Chachoua has often referenced in the name of self-promotion (it’s mentioned on his website, for example). From Staley’s Facebook:
The $10 million case that “Doctor” Sam Chachoua claims he won from L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was another lie he told to Bill. The court immediately reduced the “breach of contract” damages to $11,250 (in 2001). Cedars then successfully sued for recovery of their own court costs, in excess of that amount, and Chachoua started missing court dates after that. His own lawyer quit the case at that point. Cedars never paid him a dime.
I paid small amounts to look at the case reports, which are endless, starting in 1997, and ending in 2004. One of the court’s orders called it “the longest case in this court’s history.” If any of my legal friends want to provide a fuller account of these record, which are accessible with a PACER account, you can find them all here.
Staley’s several Facebook posts on the Real Time segment are worth perusing to get a sense of the potential danger in giving someone like Chachoua this kind of platform—these supposed miracle cures have existed for decades (and yet, HIV persists!), they conjure paranoia about a conspiracy to withhold the cure, they dissuade people from seeking therapy that actually works. It’s one thing to put a self-appointed messiah who serves goat milk and has two thirds of Yanni’s hairdo on TV—the medium thrives on eccentrics. But to do this without any hard questioning or reference to Chachoua’s blatant contradictions was incredibly irresponsible of Maher. He did a terrible job on this one.
Chachoua is shady down to the website. Earlier this month, DrSamChachoua.com was presented as a sort of fan site “created by a Group representing all the very ill and terminal patients successfully treated and cured by Dr. Sam Chachoua and the Group that actively promotes his work."
Dr. Sam also said that thinking about himself being dead is a morbid thought, but his wish would have something to do with J-Lo.
This is wild stuff.
That is untrue, but also it contradicts what he told Bill, which is that he eradicated HIV (as well as chikungunya) in Comoros in 2006. “I’ve cured countries!” Chachoua claimed, sounding like a televangelist.
“[The Dr. Oz episode] just kind of [leaves] it hanging there…If he says, as he did, that it was undetectable and it stayed then why did he go back on the traditional cocktail?” said Maher, and never pressed when this went unexplained. Nor did he show any skepticism when Chachoua claimed that when Sheen was on “the incredibly powerful medical cocktails, he still showed virus.” In fact, to this, Maher said, “Right,” which it isn’t according to Sheen’s account of being undetectable on antiretroviral therapy and, oh you know, science. “As soon as he started my treatment he became undetectable,” claimed Chachoua.
Maher played a clip of Sheen complaining to Dr. Oz about migraines and “poo poo pants” as side effects of his antiretroviral therapy. “Poo poo pants, I don’t think, is a normal life,” said Maher. “It’s a horrible way to live, all these side effects disappeared the minute he started my therapy and the minute he started my therapy, his liver went to normal levels,” claimed Chachoua, uncontested. “Even the charts they held up on our show, all the great tests they showed, they were during my treatment, not theirs.”
Maher praised Chachoua for injecting himself with Sheen’s blood. (Read that surreal sentence again.) Said Maher: “You took Charlie’s blood when he was HIV positive and injected it into yourself, and Dr. Oz says, ‘That is very inappropriate.’ What I thought was, ‘That is confident.’”
Chachoua claims that in the ‘90s, he was courted by UCLA and Cedars-Sinai, who then stole his AIDS cure and buried it. HIV activist Peter Staley (How To Survive a Plague) did some digging to expose the truth behind Chachoua’s $10 million lawsuit regarding his “cure,” which Chachoua has often referenced in the name of self-promotion (it’s mentioned on his website, for example). From Staley’s Facebook:
The $10 million case that “Doctor” Sam Chachoua claims he won from L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center was another lie he told to Bill. The court immediately reduced the “breach of contract” damages to $11,250 (in 2001). Cedars then successfully sued for recovery of their own court costs, in excess of that amount, and Chachoua started missing court dates after that. His own lawyer quit the case at that point. Cedars never paid him a dime.
I paid small amounts to look at the case reports, which are endless, starting in 1997, and ending in 2004. One of the court’s orders called it “the longest case in this court’s history.” If any of my legal friends want to provide a fuller account of these record, which are accessible with a PACER account, you can find them all here.
Staley’s several Facebook posts on the Real Time segment are worth perusing to get a sense of the potential danger in giving someone like Chachoua this kind of platform—these supposed miracle cures have existed for decades (and yet, HIV persists!), they conjure paranoia about a conspiracy to withhold the cure, they dissuade people from seeking therapy that actually works. It’s one thing to put a self-appointed messiah who serves goat milk and has two thirds of Yanni’s hairdo on TV—the medium thrives on eccentrics. But to do this without any hard questioning or reference to Chachoua’s blatant contradictions was incredibly irresponsible of Maher. He did a terrible job on this one.
Chachoua is shady down to the website. Earlier this month, DrSamChachoua.com was presented as a sort of fan site “created by a Group representing all the very ill and terminal patients successfully treated and cured by Dr. Sam Chachoua and the Group that actively promotes his work."
Dr. Sam also said that thinking about himself being dead is a morbid thought, but his wish would have something to do with J-Lo.
This is wild stuff.
The Panel tonight is with Thom Hartmann is the NY Times Bestselling author of more than twenty books, and America’s #1 progressive radio host. He has hosted the nationally syndicated radio show, “The Thom Hartmann Program” since 2003. Twitter: @Thom_Hartmann. Kristen Soltis Anderson is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and a Republican Pollster. She is the author of the 2015 book, The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials are Leading America (and how Republicans Can Keep Up.) Twitter: @ksoltisanderson. And is with Former Rep. Trey Radel represented Florida's 19th congressional district from January 3, 2013 through January 27, 2014. He is currently writing a book about the inner workings of Congress, due to be released next year. Twitter: @treyradel.
Since 1972, Iowa has held the first presidential nominating contests in the country. Over the years, the Iowa caucuses have grown in size, scope and importance, sometimes launching underdogs to the presidency or upsetting established political juggernauts.
It's easy to accept Iowa's role in presidential elections for what it is. But in some ways, Iowa should be questioned. The first-in-the-nation caucus state is whiter and more rural than the rest of the country; it doesn't really represent America in some fundamental ways. Knowing that, why is Iowa first? And is that fair? But first:
1. What's a caucus?
"A caucus — it's a neighborhood meeting," said David Yepsen, former political writer at the Des Moines Register and an Iowa politico of note. "In fact, the term caucus is thought to be a Native American term — an Algonquin term for meeting of tribal leaders."
A caucus is more than just a vote; like Yepsen said, it's a meeting. On caucus night, people gather at hundreds of sites across the state and talk about why they're supporting a candidate. Speeches are made on candidates' behalf, and there's jockeying to persuade other people to support their candidate. The process can sometimes take hours. For Democrats in Iowa, caucusgoers publicly show support for their candidates after the speeches by moving to designated spaces in the space they've gathered. If a candidate does not get at least 15 percent of the room backing him or her, those supporters must go support another, viable candidate. For Republicans, after the speeches, there's a secret ballot, no head counts.
2. Why is Iowa first?
"The really important thing to remember about Iowa is not that it's first because it's important. Iowa is important because it's first," said Kathy O'Bradovich, political columnist for the Des Moines Register. She acknowledges that Iowa didn't really happen on purpose.
"It happened after the 1968 Democratic National Convention," she said, which was marred by violence over the Vietnam War and racial tension. "The Democratic Party nationally and in Iowa decided they wanted to change their process to make it more inclusive."
Part of that meant spreading the presidential nominating schedule out in each state. Because Iowa has one of the more complex processes — precinct caucuses, county conventions, district conventions, followed by a state convention — it had to start really early. (The Democratic Party held Iowa caucuses first in the nation in 1972; the GOP followed suit in 1976.)
And once a peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter rode an Iowa caucus win all the way to the White House, Iowa suddenly became a thing.
3. Is it fair?
Just a warning, there's probably no consensus for this.
But here's how Jim Jacobson, a voter from Iowa City, rationalized it:
"Is it fair that Iowa goes first? What's fair in politics? I mean, seriously. Yeah, OK, we're like 97 percent white, and we're really rural, and we don't look like a microcosm of America. But so what?"
Let's take that first thing he points out, Iowa's whiteness.
Officially, non-Hispanic whites make up 87.1 percent of Iowa's population according to the most recent census data.
But J. Ann Selzer, the top pollster in the state, says that's actually kind of OK.
"The idea that because Iowans are white and older, they're going to vote for older white people is not borne out," she said. "In both parties, candidates of color have often done quite well in Iowa. Look at Barack Obama. Jesse Jackson did well. Alan Keyes did well on the Republican side."
Even Jeff Kaufmann, the head of the Iowa Republican Party, kind of says the same thing.
"This is going to be awfully odd, to have a Republican chair suggest you look at what Barack Obama has to say about Iowa," he said. "But I'm guessing Barack Obama has no problem with the diversity that we reflect. And I'm guessing if you talk to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, my guess is that they're not going to have a problem."
But there's another issue of race — not just who Iowans are voting for, but which Iowans are voting. Both parties say they're reaching out more to Latinos, Iowa's fastest-growing racial group. But in West Liberty, Iowa, a town that is majority Latino, NPR spoke with several residents who had no idea what a caucus is, had no intention to vote, and said no one had ever talked to them about any of it. One man thought we were asking him about a cactus.
"Nobody says anything, and nobody talks about it," West Liberty resident Maria Luna said. "And we see nothing, then we're not going to be nothing — and do nothing."
FiveThirtyEight.com found that Latinos make up about 3 percent of Iowa's electorate. The state doesn't track the race of caucusgoers, but in the last general election, Latino turnout was quote low: 25 percent. Several advocacy groups say they plan to change that, however, particularly the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC.
But the Iowa Caucus Project points out that in general, caucus participation, regardless of race, is usually relatively low. "With the exception, then, of the extraordinary Democratic caucus year in 2008," wrote Dennis J. Goldford, "we can see from these numbers that in the last two Iowa caucus cycles, not unlike earlier cycles, only roughly 20 percent of eligible caucus-goers actually turn out to participate on caucus night."
So, low turnout in an already small state; Iowa has a population of about 3 million people. And Iowa is very rural, at a time when an increasing amount of American voters these days live in or around big, urban areas.
"When we get to the general election next November, about 45 percent of the vote is going to come from places that I call big cities or urban suburbs," said Dante Chinni, director of the American Communities Project at American University. "That's a lot of the vote. There are none of those [major cities] in Iowa."
Given those numbers, he says, a state like Georgia might be more ideal. "First of all, you have diversity, a much more diverse state [in Georgia]. The other thing that Georgia has is — it has Atlanta."
When you look at states that have that mix — more racial diversity and a mix of rural and urban, there are actually a few options.
"Pennsylvania is a very good option. Colorado is an interesting state. My home state of Michigan; Ohio's a really good one," Chinni says.
NPR's Asma Khalid analyzed and indexed the demographics of each of the 50 states compared with the national averages and found that Illinois might be more appropriate based on factors like race and income.
But if you look to bigger states for more diversity, you could end up with a caucus state that's actually too big. Iowa is small enough for every candidate to make his or her way all across the state and advertise on the cheap. Small candidates can compete with the big dogs in Iowa from Day 1. It would have been much harder for Carter to win a California caucus than one in Iowa.
4. Are Iowans better at this?
Over time, one of the reasons people have come to support Iowa being first has come to be the people of Iowa themselves.
"The real reason we're first in the nation now is because of what we do. We take this real seriously," says Andy McGuire, head of the Iowa state Democratic Party. She says Iowans contest a candidate like no one else and that they've had literally decades of experience in figuring out how to grill candidates one on one.
"You know, we ask really good questions. We ask follow-up questions," she said. "We look them in the eye like I am you right now. It's real. It's one-on-one vetting of candidates. Are you for real? Not a TV spot, not money — what's in your heart?"
Whether you believe that Iowa voters are better at this or that they deserve the privilege more, it probably doesn't even matter. Yepsen says we're stuck with Iowa.
"Iowa's first because of inertia," he said, laughing. "Most people in the country don't like this process." But he says no one can agree on what else to do. Should the first nominating contest move to another state, the same questions raised about Iowa would just be shifted there. And when you're trying to find the state that's the most representative, you could fall down a rabbit hole: Which state has the most diversity of industry? Which state has education levels that most mirror the country? Which state has the most reflective ratio of things like union membership, or church attendance? You could go on ...
Others have proposed alternative primary systems (which Danielle Kurtzleben broke down here).
And say both parties agree on a viable alternative to Iowa, or even a different system altogether (one-day national primary?), Iowa might fight like hell to keep its favored spot. Being first gives Iowa lots of attention to issues Iowans care about, and it's a really, really big boost to the economy to have hordes of campaign reporters and campaign staffers staying in your hotels, eating at your restaurants, and buying ads on your television stations.
5. Putting Iowa in perspective
With all of this, though, it's important to put Iowa in perspective. Iowa is first, and in some ways, yes — you could see that as problematic. But as several experts pointed out to NPR, Iowa doesn't actually pick the president. And it's not supposed to on its own. They all said that Iowa's role is that of a winnower; it's there to start narrowing the field of presidential candidates. And if you look at it that way, maybe it all seems a little more fair. Iowa is not the be all, end all. Iowa alone is not a kingmaker. Iowa is only the start of a long journey. Iowa is just first.
Maybe a State like California is what the panel say's, is a better microcosm for what the country is made up of. Maybe they should start off the elections with a California vote.
The panel is also thinking that maybe we should re think the entire primary process.
I think we should change the electoral process while we are at it.
In U.S., Socialist Presidential Candidates Least Appealing.
Since 1972, Iowa has held the first presidential nominating contests in the country. Over the years, the Iowa caucuses have grown in size, scope and importance, sometimes launching underdogs to the presidency or upsetting established political juggernauts.
It's easy to accept Iowa's role in presidential elections for what it is. But in some ways, Iowa should be questioned. The first-in-the-nation caucus state is whiter and more rural than the rest of the country; it doesn't really represent America in some fundamental ways. Knowing that, why is Iowa first? And is that fair? But first:
1. What's a caucus?
"A caucus — it's a neighborhood meeting," said David Yepsen, former political writer at the Des Moines Register and an Iowa politico of note. "In fact, the term caucus is thought to be a Native American term — an Algonquin term for meeting of tribal leaders."
A caucus is more than just a vote; like Yepsen said, it's a meeting. On caucus night, people gather at hundreds of sites across the state and talk about why they're supporting a candidate. Speeches are made on candidates' behalf, and there's jockeying to persuade other people to support their candidate. The process can sometimes take hours. For Democrats in Iowa, caucusgoers publicly show support for their candidates after the speeches by moving to designated spaces in the space they've gathered. If a candidate does not get at least 15 percent of the room backing him or her, those supporters must go support another, viable candidate. For Republicans, after the speeches, there's a secret ballot, no head counts.
2. Why is Iowa first?
"The really important thing to remember about Iowa is not that it's first because it's important. Iowa is important because it's first," said Kathy O'Bradovich, political columnist for the Des Moines Register. She acknowledges that Iowa didn't really happen on purpose.
"It happened after the 1968 Democratic National Convention," she said, which was marred by violence over the Vietnam War and racial tension. "The Democratic Party nationally and in Iowa decided they wanted to change their process to make it more inclusive."
Part of that meant spreading the presidential nominating schedule out in each state. Because Iowa has one of the more complex processes — precinct caucuses, county conventions, district conventions, followed by a state convention — it had to start really early. (The Democratic Party held Iowa caucuses first in the nation in 1972; the GOP followed suit in 1976.)
And once a peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter rode an Iowa caucus win all the way to the White House, Iowa suddenly became a thing.
3. Is it fair?
Just a warning, there's probably no consensus for this.
But here's how Jim Jacobson, a voter from Iowa City, rationalized it:
"Is it fair that Iowa goes first? What's fair in politics? I mean, seriously. Yeah, OK, we're like 97 percent white, and we're really rural, and we don't look like a microcosm of America. But so what?"
Let's take that first thing he points out, Iowa's whiteness.
Officially, non-Hispanic whites make up 87.1 percent of Iowa's population according to the most recent census data.
But J. Ann Selzer, the top pollster in the state, says that's actually kind of OK.
"The idea that because Iowans are white and older, they're going to vote for older white people is not borne out," she said. "In both parties, candidates of color have often done quite well in Iowa. Look at Barack Obama. Jesse Jackson did well. Alan Keyes did well on the Republican side."
Even Jeff Kaufmann, the head of the Iowa Republican Party, kind of says the same thing.
"This is going to be awfully odd, to have a Republican chair suggest you look at what Barack Obama has to say about Iowa," he said. "But I'm guessing Barack Obama has no problem with the diversity that we reflect. And I'm guessing if you talk to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, my guess is that they're not going to have a problem."
But there's another issue of race — not just who Iowans are voting for, but which Iowans are voting. Both parties say they're reaching out more to Latinos, Iowa's fastest-growing racial group. But in West Liberty, Iowa, a town that is majority Latino, NPR spoke with several residents who had no idea what a caucus is, had no intention to vote, and said no one had ever talked to them about any of it. One man thought we were asking him about a cactus.
"Nobody says anything, and nobody talks about it," West Liberty resident Maria Luna said. "And we see nothing, then we're not going to be nothing — and do nothing."
FiveThirtyEight.com found that Latinos make up about 3 percent of Iowa's electorate. The state doesn't track the race of caucusgoers, but in the last general election, Latino turnout was quote low: 25 percent. Several advocacy groups say they plan to change that, however, particularly the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC.
But the Iowa Caucus Project points out that in general, caucus participation, regardless of race, is usually relatively low. "With the exception, then, of the extraordinary Democratic caucus year in 2008," wrote Dennis J. Goldford, "we can see from these numbers that in the last two Iowa caucus cycles, not unlike earlier cycles, only roughly 20 percent of eligible caucus-goers actually turn out to participate on caucus night."
So, low turnout in an already small state; Iowa has a population of about 3 million people. And Iowa is very rural, at a time when an increasing amount of American voters these days live in or around big, urban areas.
"When we get to the general election next November, about 45 percent of the vote is going to come from places that I call big cities or urban suburbs," said Dante Chinni, director of the American Communities Project at American University. "That's a lot of the vote. There are none of those [major cities] in Iowa."
Given those numbers, he says, a state like Georgia might be more ideal. "First of all, you have diversity, a much more diverse state [in Georgia]. The other thing that Georgia has is — it has Atlanta."
When you look at states that have that mix — more racial diversity and a mix of rural and urban, there are actually a few options.
"Pennsylvania is a very good option. Colorado is an interesting state. My home state of Michigan; Ohio's a really good one," Chinni says.
NPR's Asma Khalid analyzed and indexed the demographics of each of the 50 states compared with the national averages and found that Illinois might be more appropriate based on factors like race and income.
But if you look to bigger states for more diversity, you could end up with a caucus state that's actually too big. Iowa is small enough for every candidate to make his or her way all across the state and advertise on the cheap. Small candidates can compete with the big dogs in Iowa from Day 1. It would have been much harder for Carter to win a California caucus than one in Iowa.
4. Are Iowans better at this?
Over time, one of the reasons people have come to support Iowa being first has come to be the people of Iowa themselves.
"The real reason we're first in the nation now is because of what we do. We take this real seriously," says Andy McGuire, head of the Iowa state Democratic Party. She says Iowans contest a candidate like no one else and that they've had literally decades of experience in figuring out how to grill candidates one on one.
"You know, we ask really good questions. We ask follow-up questions," she said. "We look them in the eye like I am you right now. It's real. It's one-on-one vetting of candidates. Are you for real? Not a TV spot, not money — what's in your heart?"
Whether you believe that Iowa voters are better at this or that they deserve the privilege more, it probably doesn't even matter. Yepsen says we're stuck with Iowa.
"Iowa's first because of inertia," he said, laughing. "Most people in the country don't like this process." But he says no one can agree on what else to do. Should the first nominating contest move to another state, the same questions raised about Iowa would just be shifted there. And when you're trying to find the state that's the most representative, you could fall down a rabbit hole: Which state has the most diversity of industry? Which state has education levels that most mirror the country? Which state has the most reflective ratio of things like union membership, or church attendance? You could go on ...
Others have proposed alternative primary systems (which Danielle Kurtzleben broke down here).
And say both parties agree on a viable alternative to Iowa, or even a different system altogether (one-day national primary?), Iowa might fight like hell to keep its favored spot. Being first gives Iowa lots of attention to issues Iowans care about, and it's a really, really big boost to the economy to have hordes of campaign reporters and campaign staffers staying in your hotels, eating at your restaurants, and buying ads on your television stations.
5. Putting Iowa in perspective
With all of this, though, it's important to put Iowa in perspective. Iowa is first, and in some ways, yes — you could see that as problematic. But as several experts pointed out to NPR, Iowa doesn't actually pick the president. And it's not supposed to on its own. They all said that Iowa's role is that of a winnower; it's there to start narrowing the field of presidential candidates. And if you look at it that way, maybe it all seems a little more fair. Iowa is not the be all, end all. Iowa alone is not a kingmaker. Iowa is only the start of a long journey. Iowa is just first.
Maybe a State like California is what the panel say's, is a better microcosm for what the country is made up of. Maybe they should start off the elections with a California vote.
The panel is also thinking that maybe we should re think the entire primary process.
I think we should change the electoral process while we are at it.
In U.S., Socialist Presidential Candidates Least Appealing.
- More than nine in 10 would vote for a Catholic, black, or woman
- Ninety-one percent would vote for a Jewish or Hispanic candidate
- Americans show most bias toward socialists (47%), atheists (58%)
As the 2016 presidential election field takes shape, more than nine in 10 Americans say they would vote for a qualified presidential candidate who is Catholic, a woman, black, Hispanic or Jewish. Less than half of Americans would vote for a candidate who is a socialist.
A June 2-7 Gallup poll updated the question -- first asked in 1937 -- about the acceptability of presidential candidates of various background characteristics. The general trend is that Americans have become significantly more accepting over time.
Among religious identities, while the large majority of Americans would vote for a Catholic or Jewish presidential candidate, smaller majorities say they would vote for a candidate who is Mormon (81%), an evangelical Christian (73%), Muslim (60%) or an atheist (58%).
These dynamics can affect 2016 candidates' efforts to attract American voters in the upcoming primaries as well as the general election next year, particularly because the field is shaping up as one that will have some diversity in terms of race, gender and, particularly, religion.
Five declared candidates are Catholics -- Republicans Jeb Bush, George Pataki, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum, and Democrat Martin O'Malley. Two are women -- Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and Republican Carly Fiorina. Republican Ben Carson is the sole black candidate in the race, while two candidates are Hispanic -- Republicans Rubio and Ted Cruz.
Independent Bernie Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, is the only Jewish candidate in the race. And while a large majority of Americans are willing to vote for a candidate of his faith, Sanders' self-identification as a socialist could hurt him, as half of Americans say they would not vote for someone with that background.
In addition, several candidates have heavily courted the evangelical community -- including Republicans Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Carson, Santorum and Cruz.
Democrats and Republicans Vary in Support for Candidates From Religious Groups
Democrats and Republicans vary in their support for candidates of particular religious affiliations.
Republicans (84%) are significantly more likely than Democrats (66%) to say they will vote for an evangelical candidate. But Democrats are more likely to say they will vote for a Muslim (73%) or an atheist (64%) than are Republicans, of whom less than half say they are willing to vote for a candidate with either of these belief systems.
Republicans and Democrats differ most in their willingness to vote for a socialist candidate, by 33 percentage points, but socialist ranks last for both parties. The two parties also differ significantly on voting for a gay or lesbian candidate, by 24 points. Majorities of Democrats are willing to vote for a candidate with any of the characteristics mentioned in the poll.
There are no meaningful party differences in willingness to vote for a female, black or Hispanic candidate.
Americans Under 30 the Least Particular on Candidate Characteristics
Gallup also finds wide differences in support for gay or lesbian, atheist, Muslim and socialist presidential candidates by age. Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 are much more likely than those 65 and older to support these four types of candidates. Younger Americans are also slightly more likely to say they will vote for women and Hispanics, by eight points each.
At least two-thirds of adults younger than 30 say they are willing to vote for a candidate with any of the characteristics included in the survey.
Bottom Line
With more than a dozen candidates running for president, the 2016 field is one of the most diverse Americans have ever seen. On the heels of the historic election and re-election of the nation's first black president, Americans are just as likely to lend their support to black candidates as to women and Hispanics. This suggests that another historic election could be on the horizon with Hillary Clinton, Carly Fiorina, Rubio and Cruz in the race.
Americans' notions about whom they would give their support to are widening, but they are still less than fully supportive of candidates with certain characteristics.
The news is likely worst for Sen. Bernie Sanders. At one point, Americans might have withheld their votes from him because of his Jewish faith --fewer than half said they would support a Jewish candidate in 1937 -- but today his socialist ideology, given Americans' views on voting for a socialist candidate, could hinder his candidacy more.
To a lesser degree, evangelical Christian candidates may suffer, in that one in four Americans say they will not vote for an evangelical Christian. Candidates of various faiths who court American evangelicals, like Southern Baptists Cruz and Huckabee, or Catholic Santorum, could suffer from their association with the evangelical faithful and the social issues they take firm stances on.
Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted June 2-7, 2015, with a random sample of 1,527 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.
Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cellphone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.
Learn more about how Gallup Poll Social Series works.
Thom Hartmann, Kristen Soltis Anderson and former Rep. Trey Radel - discuss the culture clash being experienced by countries accommodating Syrian refugees. Plus, Bill tries to talk some sense into a folk singer with plans to put on a concert in ISIS-controlled territory in this clip
Oregon folk singer set to travel to the Islamic State to sing for peace.
In the video, you can see this clown singing a verse from the Qur’an: “And if they incline to peace, then incline to it and rely upon Allah” (8:61). Doubtless the Islamic State jihadis will hear this (and understand it in English), and their eyes will fill with tears as they lay down their arms and embrace James Twyman, the lovable lug, in a big bear hug.
Never mind that no Islamic jurists understand that Qur’an verse as superseding the book’s many commands to wage war against and subjugate unbelievers; the very idea that some Leftist guitar picker from Portland can go over to the Islamic State and sing a Qur’an verse in English, and that this will bring peace, epitomizes the Leftist detachment from reality. James Twyman is a bird of a feather with Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (who insists that a man who says he shot a policeman in the name of Islam didn’t do it in the name of Islam) and Barack Obama, David Cameron, John Kerry, Pope Francis and the Catholic bishops, et al (who insist that Islamic jihad terror has nothing to do with Islam): they believe that their fantasies will become reality as long as they keep on repeating them and never, ever break character. They assume that because to believe other than what they believe is to enter the realm of the “racist, bigoted Islamophobe,” and those people can’t possibly be right, and therefore they must be right, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
“With all the violence, with all the fear that has been generated, I think the only answer is for us to focus on love and compassion and peace. And so do something as crazy as going over there, it hopefully inspires people.” Yes, it may well inspire some Islamic State jihadis to sharpen up their beheading knives and try them out on James Twyman, probably right while he is in the midst of singing “if they incline to peace…”
This just goes to show you: some people’s balloon never lands.
“Oregon musician traveling to Syria to sing for peace”
It may sound crazy to some, but it’s not the first time James Twyman has gone to a war torn area to sing and pray for peace. While it might be dangerous, James feels he has to do it.
Twyman sings the Muslim prayer. It’s just one of many prayers he puts to music from various religions when he sings for peace around the world.
In the late 90’s, Twyman performed in Baghdad amid fallout from Dessert [sic!] Storm and he played in Syria a couple years ago.
Twyman will travel to the Israeli-Syrian border to hold a concert in a Syrian village. It is in ISIS-dominated territory, but Twyman says he has people there setting it up and making sure it’s as safe as possible.
Twyman’s goal is for people at the concert and around the world to sing and pray for peace at the exact same time. He’s well aware of the danger involved, but says that’s not enough of a reason to stay away.
“With all the violence, with all the feat [sic] that has been generated, I think the only answer is for us to focus on love and compassion and peace. And so do something as crazy as going over there, it hopefully inspires people.”
Have you seen the new Bernie Sanders ad using the Simon & Garfunkel song? Here it is:
Have you seen the new Bernie Sanders ad using the Simon & Garfunkel song? Here it is:
Also on the show is Adam McKay is the director and writer of the Oscar-nominated film, “The Big Short.” He has directed several comedies, including “Anchorman” and “Step-Brothers,” and is a co-founder of the comedy website, Funny Or Die. Twitter: @ghostpanther.
Is the real Michael Burry an introvert like Christian Bale's character in the movie?
Yes. The true story behind The Big Short reveals that the real Michael Burry has always been an introvert. When his own son was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, Burry began to believe that he too suffered from a mild form of the autism-related condition. -The Big Short book
Did the real Michael Burry walk around the office with no shoes on?
Yes. According to director Adam McKay, this is true. "He's a guy who listens to speed metal," says McKay, "most of the time doesn't wear shoes. He would go weeks wearing the same clothes." -Meet Michael Burry Featurette
Did the real Michael Burry lose an eye?
Yes. The real Michael Burry lost an eye to cancer when he was two years old. "You're never not aware that you have an artificial eye," says Burry. "You can feel it. You notice when you're looking at somebody and they keep moving to the side because your eyes are not lining up. You notice when the kids tease you 'cause you're cross-eyed, or that sort of thing." -Bloomberg Risk Takers
How old was Michael Burry when he learned about the stock market?
During our research into The Big Short true story, we learned that Michael Burry's introduction to the stock market began in approximately the second grade. He looked into American Motors, the company that made the real-life version of the toy jeep that accompanied his little plastic army men. By high school, Burry was investing real money in the stock market. -Bloomberg Risk Takers
Was Michael Burry really a doctor?
In The Big Short movie, Christian Bale's character emphasizes the fact that he is not only a hedge fund manager, but also a doctor. The true story behind The Big Short confirms that the real Michael Burry was indeed a doctor. In 1990, he went to medical school at Vanderbilt and then began his residency at Stanford. His interest in investing soon began to take over, consuming his nights and spare time. He started a blog about it and put what little money he had into undervalued stocks. Consequently, his devotion to medicine began to suffer. He once fell asleep standing up while observing a complicated surgery, collapsing into the patient's oxygen tent. He was thrown out of the operating room by the surgeon, who was furious. Burry eventually left his residency at the age of 29. -Bloomberg Risk Takers
Can the real Michael Burry explain in layman's terms how he made so much money off the housing crisis?
The Big Short book Michael Lewis
Read The Big Short by Michael Lewis to learn more about the housing market crisis and how individuals like Michael Burry capitalized on it. In an April 2010 op-ed piece in The New York Times, Michael Burry wrote about how he was able to see the housing market crisis coming and explained what he did to capitalize on the collapse. "I purchased credit default swaps — a type of insurance — on billions of dollars worth of both subprime mortgage-backed securities and the bonds of many of the financial companies that would be devastated when the real estate bubble burst. As the value of the bonds fell, the value of the credit default swaps would rise."
Were the real-life subjects involved in the making of the movie?
Of the four main characters, Michael Burry (Christian Bale) is the only character whose name wasn't changed for the movie. The real Michael Burry spent a total of roughly 12 hours talking with actor Christian Bale. This included phone calls and visiting the set several times. "Christian is an incredibly professional actor," Burry said. "I certainly can't be unhappy with his portrayal or effort he put in" (CNBC.com). Bale called Burry a fascinating individual and says that he became very fond of him. As for the others, Steve Carell met with Steve Eisman over breakfast after reading up on him. It does not appear that Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt were in touch with Greg Lippmann and Ben Hockett, the real-life counterparts to their Big Short characters (The Hollywood Reporter).
Does The Big Short paint an accurate picture of the 2007 financial crisis?
No. At best it paints an incomplete picture of the mortgage bubble/crisis. According to Greg Ip of The Wall Street Journal, the movie puts too much of the blame on Wall Street corruption, while failing to examine the less severe but more compelling causes for the bubble. While choosing to merely criminalize the bankers, it oversimplifies what actually happened. The movie also never answers the question as to how the mortgage bubble formed.
Regarding there being lead in the water in Flint, Michigan, Aging Pipes Are Poisoning America's Tap Water In Flint, Michigan, lead, copper, and bacteria are contaminating the drinking supply and making residents ill. If other cities fail to fix their old pipes, the problem could soon become a lot more common.
Melissa Mays looks around the emergency room at a frail, elderly man in a wheelchair and a woman with a hacking cough and can’t quite believe she’s here. Until a few months ago, she was healthy—an active mother of three boys who found time to go to the gym while holding down a job as a media consultant and doing publicity for bands.
But lately, she’s been feeling sluggish. She’s developed a rash on her leg, and clumps of her hair are falling out. She ended up in the emergency room last week after feeling “like [her] brain exploded,” hearing pops, and experiencing severe pain in one side of her head.
Mays blames her sudden spate of health problems on the water in her hometown of Flint. She says it has a blue tint when it comes out of her faucet, and lab results indicate it has high amounts of copper and lead. Her family hasn’t been drinking the water for some months, but they have been bathing in it, since they have no alternative.
“It set off a train wreck in my system,” Mays told me, sitting in the emergency room. Later, doctors would put her on beta blockers after finding problems in the arteries around her brain.
In the past 16 months, abnormally high levels of e. coli, trihamlomethanes, lead, and copper have been found in the city’s water, which comes from the local river (a dead body and an abandoned car were also found in the same river). Mays and other residents say that the city government endangered their health when it stopped buying water from Detroit last year and instead started selling residents treated water from the Flint River. “I’ve never seen a first-world city have such disregard for human safety,” she told me.
While Flint’s government and its financial struggles certainly have a role to play in the city’s water woes, the city may actually be a canary in the coal mine, signaling more problems to come across the country. “Flint is an extreme case, but nationally, there’s been a lack of investment in water infrastructure,” said Eric Scorsone, an economist at Michigan State University who has followed the case of Flint. “This is a common problem nationally— infrastructure maintenance has not kept up.”
Bethany Hazard says her water started coming out of the faucet brown and smelling like a sewer, and when she called the city to complain, she was told the water was fine.
Indeed, water scarcity in the parched West might be getting the most news coverage, but infrastructure delays and climate change are causing big problems for cities in the North and Midwest, too. Last summer, hundreds of thousands of people in Toledo were told not to drink tap water because tests showed abnormally high levels of microcystins, perhaps related to algae blooms in Lake Erie. Microcystins can cause fever, headaches, vomiting, and—in rare cases—seizures. Heavy rainfall has caused backups in the filtering process at overloaded water-treatment plants in Pennsylvania, and so residents are frequently finding themselves under advisories to boil water. And Chicago, which installed lead service lines in many areas in the 1980s, is now facing a spike in lead-contaminated tap water.
In 2013, America received a “D” in the drinking-water category of the American Society for Civil Engineers’ Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. The report found that most of the nation’s drinking-water infrastructure is “nearing the end of its useful life.” Replacing the nation’s pipes would cost more than $1 trillion. The country’s wastewater infrastructure also got a “D” grade.
Like many cities in America, Flint has lost residents but still has to provide services like water and sewer and road maintenance within the same boundaries. All while bringing in less tax revenue to pay for it. Flint has not had the money to spend on crucial infrastructure upgrades, and has left old pipes in place for longer than most engineers would recommend. Water prices are rising in Flint, like they are in lots of other cities, but the quality of water is getting worse, not better.
Flint has financially struggled for longer than most American cities. The birthplace of General Motors, the city began having problems in the 1980s and 1990s when GM started closing plants. By 2001, its unemployment rate was 11.2 percent, which grew every year until it reached 25 percent in 2009. Families began to seek opportunity elsewhere, leaving behind empty homes. As the city’s population declined, it struggled to come up with the revenue to provide basic services such as police and fire coverage for residents. The water system, though, was still a “cash cow,” said Scorsone, the professor, so Flint borrowed from the water authority to pay its city bills.
Flint has been buying water from Detroit since 1967. The Detroit Water and Sewer Department, in the booming post-war years, expanded its services, adding 1,000 square miles of territory. But as the population began to shrink in both Detroit and Flint, fewer customers were left to pay for infrastructure and services. Detroit began raising rates, but Flint didn’t pass those rate increases on to customers because residents were struggling economically and politicians worried they’d get voted out of office, said Scorsone. That meant that little to no money was spent on infrastructure upgrades.
In 2004, Detroit charged Flint $11.06 per million cubic foot of water. By 2013, it was charging $19.12 per million cubic foot, a 73 percent increase.
“It’s a combination of bad management and bad economics,” Scorsone said.
Governor Rick Snyder appointed an emergency manager to take control over the city. It was a move that upset many, since emergency managers are used to replace elected officials such as city councils and mayors and have widespread authority, but less connection to residents. In 2012, Michigan voters repealed an emergency-manager law that had allowed emergency managers to take over troubled cities and school districts. But the state legislature then passed a different, and more far-reaching, emergency-manager law later that year. A group of citizens, including some from Flint, filed a lawsuit arguing that the law violated their constitutional right to equal protection. In November, a judge allowed the suit to go forward.
Unwilling to pay rising Detroit water costs, Genesee County, where Flint is located, decided to work with other Michigan counties to build a pipeline from Lake Huron to mid-Michigan. But the pipeline, called the Karegnondi Water Authority, won’t be completed until late 2016. So in 2013, Flint decided that until the pipeline was finished, it would pump water from the Flint River, treat it, and sell it to residents. The plan would save the city much-needed money: The annual cost to treat water from the Flint River is $2.8 million, said Howard Croft, the city’s public-works director. Buying water from Detroit, on the other hand, costs $12 million a year.
But making river water safe for public use is a much more difficult task than treating reservoir or lake water. Rivers are subject to runoff and the water quality can change quickly with air temperature or heavy storms. Flint found this out as soon as it turned off the pumps from Detroit and started pumping its own water in April 2014.
Residents said they noticed the difference almost immediately. Melissa Mays says her water started smelling like rotten eggs, and had a strange tint when coming out of the faucet, sometimes blue, sometimes yellowish.
Claire McClinton, a GM retiree, said her house began to smell like garbage. Another resident, Bethany Hazard, says her water started coming out of the faucet brown and smelling like a sewer, and when she called the city to complain, she was told the water was fine.
The water was not fine. First, tests showed there was fecal coliform bacteria in the water, and the city had to issue numerous boil advisories to citizens. In response, engineers upped the amount of chlorine in its water, leading to dangerously high levels of trihalomethanes, or TTHMs, which put Flint in violation of the Clean Water Act. TTHMs are especially dangerous when inhaled, making showering in hot water toxic.
By October, GM, which still has a plant in Flint, had started noticing that the water was corroding parts of its engines. The plant switched off the Flint water, and started trucking in water from elsewhere. It asked the city for permission to use water from Flint Township, rather than the city of Flint (Flint Township was still buying water from Detroit), and switched back to Detroit water, said spokesman Tom Wickham.
LeeAnne Walters didn’t notice any changes right away. But a few months after the switch, she noticed that her children were getting rashes between their fingers, on their shins, on the back of their knees. Her four-year-old son, who has a compromised immune system, started breaking out into scaly rashes whenever he swam in their salt-water pool, which he’d used since birth. Then Walters’ 14-year-old son got extremely sick and missed a month of school.
So she sent her water off to Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech environmental engineering professor who had forced the CDC to admit it had misled the public about the amount of lead in D.C.’s water.
Edwards was shocked when he found that Walters’ lead content was 13,000 parts per billion. The EPA recommends keeping lead content below 15 parts per billion.
Former Rep. Trey Radel, Adam McKay, Thom Hartmann and Kristen Soltis Anderson – discuss the voter suppression taking place under the guise of the War on Drugs in this clip.
Trey Radel is the ex-congressman busted for cocaine launches media messaging firm which they mention on the show tonight. "The first rule in Fight club is to never buy cocaine from a DEA agent."
Two states allow felons to vote from prison while other states may permanently ban felons from voting even after being released from prison, parole, and probation, and having paid all their fines.
The chart below provides links to each state's laws on felon voting and places each US state within one of five categories ranging from harshest (may lose vote permanently) to least restrictive (may vote while in prison). Applications for re-enfranchisement and clemency have been provided for the states which require them.
Felon voting has not been regulated federally although some argue that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can be applied to felon disenfranchisement and that Congress has the authority to legislate felon voting in federal elections.
In addition, 10 states restrict some people with a misdemeanor conviction from voting.
In a twist this Monday, a Texas grand jury investigating Planned Parenthood wrapped by issuing several indictments not to the women’s healthcare provider, but to two of the anti-abortion activists who had prompted the investigation.
The grand jury, convened by the Harris County district attorney’s office, indicted David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for tampering with a governmental record.
The indictments conclude a two-month investigation into video taped at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston operated by Planned Parenthood of the gulf coast. Daleiden and Merritt introduced themselves as executives at a biomedical research company and presented fake California drivers’ licenses.
Two states allow felons to vote from prison while other states may permanently ban felons from voting even after being released from prison, parole, and probation, and having paid all their fines.
The chart below provides links to each state's laws on felon voting and places each US state within one of five categories ranging from harshest (may lose vote permanently) to least restrictive (may vote while in prison). Applications for re-enfranchisement and clemency have been provided for the states which require them.
Felon voting has not been regulated federally although some argue that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can be applied to felon disenfranchisement and that Congress has the authority to legislate felon voting in federal elections.
In addition, 10 states restrict some people with a misdemeanor conviction from voting.
In a twist this Monday, a Texas grand jury investigating Planned Parenthood wrapped by issuing several indictments not to the women’s healthcare provider, but to two of the anti-abortion activists who had prompted the investigation.
The grand jury, convened by the Harris County district attorney’s office, indicted David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt for tampering with a governmental record.
The indictments conclude a two-month investigation into video taped at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston operated by Planned Parenthood of the gulf coast. Daleiden and Merritt introduced themselves as executives at a biomedical research company and presented fake California drivers’ licenses.
In his editorial New Rule, Bill Maher discusses the "fact-free lifestyle" politicians are leading and addresses the Internet's role in enabling it.
